


Limbo

by Winterlynne_Norvic



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (heavily implied), Enjoy!, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, NOT SAD, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a bit of depression talk, although i could right that too, an au of some sort maybe, could be canon honestly, day in bed, for refrence limbo is used to describe in between not the party game, inspired by a convo i had with my friend, this is soft, well I tried at least, white roses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 13:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18011681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterlynne_Norvic/pseuds/Winterlynne_Norvic
Summary: Andrew and Neil spend a late afternoon/day in bed to just be together.(as always our boys are bad at feelings and Neil is incapable of honesty and Andrew is Andrew)





	Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to bad romance as I posted this and honestly its such a bop. hope ya enjoy my first Andriel short fic, it took me quite some time to write lol, and thanks to my friend for inspiring me to write this albeit accidentally, I'm quite happy with the way this turned out. very proud of me.

Neil woke to a stark white room, momentary panic urged him to run before he remembered where he was.

 

With Andrew, lying in Andrew's bed fitted with the finest sheets, luxury the way Andrew prefered. 

 

He found the man in question already staring at him, and couldn't help the smile that danced upon his lips when he remembered the… _ events _ of the night before.

 

In the late afternoon light, (it had been a very long night) Neil waited for Andrew to say something, most likely along the lines of calling Neil an insufferable bastard (one of Andrew's favourites) but when he didn't, Neil contented himself to observing his lover. Andrew let Neil look his fill without once saying the word  _ staring _ , cajoling him without even changing his tone.

 

It was not long before Neil soon realized that this silence was not one of peace for Andrew, but one of contemplation, and Neil couldn't help but find how peculiar it was that one could be so distant and near all at the same time.

 

“What's wrong?” He almost adds an endearment but holds his tongue, he knows Andrew wants nothing of the sort.  _ This _ did not mean the same to Andrew as it did to Neil.

 

Thankfully, Andrew doesn't complain about Neil breaking the silence, merely blinks and continues peering through Neil or at Neil, or perhaps in himself and Neil was just there.

 

“What makes you think something's wrong?” He asks belatedly.

 

Neil can feel his brows furrow and his lips purse, the face that tells Andrew Neil is thinking too much or is unhappy about one thing or another and he needed someone to distract him from himself. Instead Neil gets a mild look of annoyance from Andrew for disrupting the view (which was Neil himself, a fact that Neil would usually enjoy immensely) However, the matter stood that Andrew had not denied that something  _ was _ wrong.

 

“You're very far away right now.” Neil whispered into the stillness.

 

“I'm right beside you.” He replied disinterested. Or feigning disinterest, which would be a very Andrew thing to do.

 

“Physically yes,” Neil agreed. ‘But mentally that is not the case.”

 

“I hate you.” He tells Neil without inflection.

 

Neil smiles crookedly, “So I've been told… By you. Many,  _ many _ times.”

 

Andrew hums, seeming a little more here than before and Neil allows them to return to silence for a few moments. He knows that they are both building their barriers in the allotted time. Not for or against each other, but for themselves to keep out what would only do them harm. The past for example, the mind berating itself with fear and memories, probably meant to be a warning but acting more like a demon.

 

They both had enough  _ real _ demons in Neil's opinion, one's own mind shouldn't become one as well.

 

And then.

 

And then Andrew speaks

 

“How do you get up in the morning?”

 

Neil tensed at the question, not expecting it and not really knowing what to say. It wasn't that he couldn't think of things, he could, he already had words lined up on the tip of his tongue, he just didn't know what Andrew needed to hear. 

 

He didn't know what Andrew needed, but Andrew wasn't asking about himself, he was asking about Neil. So Neil picked the most unlikeliest of words.

 

“Sometimes I don't want to get up in the morning.” He confessed to the air, to Andrew who already knew. “Sometimes I wished I hadn't even woken, sometimes I was glad I did because I would no longer be trapped inside, only to find out that inside had followed me out.”

 

“Sometimes I think it would be better to stay right where I had woken, and wait for the wolves to find me and swallow me whole. Sometimes when I can actually think in the mornings, I know no wolves will come-real ones at least-but I know if I stayed, and waited long enough, one day I wouldn't get up again.”

 

He squinted at the ceiling, trying to find any flaw and finding none. “Those days are hard to get up on, the ones where you feel like not a single thing matters or has purpose, definitely not yourself… And yet I haven't  _ not  _ gotten up.”

 

He pauses, his truth a bit much to bear, at least now he could stop baring his heart for inspection, although with Andrew listening it was more of a dissection as he picked a part every detail with all the skills learned from his extensive therapy sessions.

 

“On days like those, I have to untangle me from my mind, and acknowledge that I am not fine. And I won't be fine, not then, not tomorrow, not next week, or next month, or even next year.”

 

It was so hard to speak sometimes.

 

“And that is a lot of time to not be fine, but I've spent my whole life pretending that I was when I wasn't, so much so that waiting a year, or two or three, however many it takes to work and become fine, is worth getting up in the morning.”

 

“It's not perfect, actually it sucks, because I know I'll have set backs and days that will make what I'm saying sound like the pipe dream you always say I am, and instead of convincing myself sometimes I make it worse...”

 

It was strange hearing his heartbeat in the silence he'd made.

 

The sound that fills the air is just the two of them breathing.

 

He wants to add more, but his mind is tired and he does not feel like talking more about how he gets himself to get up and get going

 

“Today is not one of those days.” Neil looked over at Andrew, and he knew for him it was not one of those days either. Today seemed to be more of a limbo, suspended in time, in between, both there and not.

 

Neil waits for Andrew to react, but he doesn't, not that Andrew ever really does react so this is no surprise. Instead Neil just waits, a few minutes float by and Neil wishes them well on their way, yes, limbo would be a good way to describe today.

 

Then sheets rustle beside him, and Neil looks over to Andrew who is pushing himself up onto his knees, but resting his weight on his ( ~~_ muscled _ ~~ ) calves.

 

“You're so predictable.” Andrew tells Neil in oddly good spirits (not that anyone other than Neil would be able to tell).

 

“I am?” He asks surprised. It seems Andrew was never done surprising him, but this was the first time Neil had ever been called  _ predictable. _

 

“I know you Josten, maybe better than you know yourself.”

 

“No one ever completely knows themselves.” Neil denies, although the argument does not exactly work, not without the words he left unsaid.

 

_ No one ever completely knows themselves, so how can you know me when I don't even know me myself. _

 

Andrew shrugs acknowledging and ignoring Neil and his words, spoken and the ones he did not say, as he leans back and plucks a single white rose from an ornate vase on his side of the bed. Andrew pinches it between elegant fingers without even needing to look.

 

“For you,” He says and rocks forward holding the position long enough to tuck the dethorned flower into Neil's hair. “It seems you need it.”

 

Neil grins a bit mischievously. Andrew had taken to carrying white roses with him so he could gift them to Neil, all because of their meaning.

 

Honesty.

 

“Are you suggesting that I’ve been lying?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How rude of you.”

 

Neil leans forward and Andrew does the same, they meet in the middle, quiet yeses leading to lips catching and tongues clashing, leaving Neil breathless when they pull away.

 

“That is not how  _ you _ get up in the morning Neil.”

 

Neil wants to look everywhere but Andrew, who was so good at reading the auburn haired boy across from him.

 

“They're not all lies.”

 

“I'm not asking about those, Neil.”

 

“You're not asking at all.” Neil points out, he regrets it when he sees Andrew's distinctly unimpressed face.

 

“Fine,” Andrew says slowly, “Where did those words come from?”

 

Neil reddens, his lovely fair skin betraying him even before he speaks, not that Andrew needed such a visible cue.

 

“I read them somewhere.” 

 

“You're still lying my love.” He says, Neil feels a pang in his chest from the words. Andrew had started calling Neil his love ironically, a mockery of what they had and what they did, but sometimes, like now, Neil wasn't so certain about that at all. 

 

It hurt to crush his own hope before it could bloom.

 

“They're my words,” Neil finally admits.

 

Andrew considers him suddenly serious, “Truth.”

 

“I don't believe them.”

 

“Truth.” He says again without hesitation.

 

“I want to believe them.” Neil admits this too, quietly, fearing that Andrew may ridicule him for it. They'd both lived in the darkness their whole lives, had become it at times, how could either one believe they would ever be able to walk in the light?

 

“Truth.”

 

Neil looks up in surprise when that is all Andrew says, “You don't think it's stupid?”

 

Andrew's face holds no expression, not even as he reached up a hand to hold  Neil's face, or as he brushed his thumb along Neil's cheekbone and pulled Neil down to him.

 

“It is the stupidest thing you've ever said.” Andrew was completely earnest and Neil found that it bothered him not.

 

“Yet,” he stopped on that word to look Neil in the eyes, Andrew’s own honeyed ones never failing to captivate Neil. They were so alive for someone who at times hadn't wanted to be alive at all.

 

“Yet?” Neil asked not wanting to dare and hope, and hoping anyway.

 

“Yet,” Andrew replied, eyes drifting from Neil's eyes to his mouth, to his neck, to his cheek bones, to Neil's vibrant auburn hair, then once again meeting his braced blue eyes that were already preparing for rejection.

 

“When I’m with you, sometimes I want to believe too.”

 

Neil fails at holding in his gasp, fails at hiding his feelings, his carefully built walls knocked over in one hit, a weakness he hadn't expected made apparent.

 

“Oh.” His quick wit, sharp words and lies all abandoned him at once, and he couldn't form a coherent thought let alone a sentence. Neil practically radiated awe.

 

“ ‘Oh’?” Andrew repeats intrigued. “Have I finally found a way to shut you up?” He gently pushes Neil back and he goes willingly, completely pliant under Andrew's hands.

 

An ( ~~_ eager _ ~~ ) easy yes was uttered and then they were kissing, Andrew methodically taking Neil's walls down along with Neil himself.

 

Neil couldn't manage words for quite a while after, and his heart refused to stop thundering even in his body's languidity. 

 

_ He had given Andrew his always, what had Andrew just given him? _

 

“I do so enjoy this quiet Neil.” Andrew crowed, parting Neil from that train of thought, and he began to absently wonder what the others would say if they knew Andrew routinely teased him. “You should do it more often.”

 

“The cat has never gotten my tongue quite like this before.” Neil returned breezily.

 

He doesn't attempt to smother his smile when Andrew growls at him ( ~~_ it was cute _ ~~ ) To anyone else this was merely a metaphor, but to them it was more. While Andrew had taken to mockingly call Neil love, Neil took his own revenge and routinely compared Andrew to a cat, starting with how lazy they both were (And not at all to do with the fact that Neil would  _ kill  _ for the right to call Andrew kitten.) 

 

“I hate you.” He repeats, Neil smiles at him openly, “We've established this already.” Andrew grunts and Neil basks in the peace of the moment humming quietly and off tune to himself. If Andrew had asked how Neil woke up once more he might have actually gotten an honest answer. Past the need to survive, past running away. Neil had been given a key, and he called it home, had been told to stay, and to him that was worth getting up for.

 

“How do you wake up now Andrew?” He dared to ask, his own curiosity getting the better of him. It was dangerous because he knew Andrew heard the now, and understood the difference. That Neil knew Andrew very well too, and something had changed.

 

Andrew huffed a mixture of amusement and annoyance, and Neil couldn't help admire the emotions on his usually stoic face, and quietly thanked the probably fake God, or gods, or whoever, for Andrew. He may have not been Neil's answer, but he was definitely part of the solution.

 

“I get up with your stupid face the first thing in my mind, and your lanky body already next to mine.”

 

Neil wanted to point out that he was lean not lanky but  _ holy shit he was about to cry or have a heart attack Neil didn't know which but holy shit holy shit what the fuck. _

 

Andrew scoffed when he saw Neil's face, “You're an insufferable bastard and an idiot junkie, I don't know why I picked you.”

 

But he did, over and over and over again and Neil did not think they'd be leaving the bed for quite some time.

 

…

 

It turns out, Andrew had definitely found a way to shut Neil up, and while being kissed senseless Neil realized he was wrong; limbo turned out to be a horrible word to describe today.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, leave a kudos or a comment if you like, both make me supper happy, and tell me if you have any prompts cause I'll actually write them! (it just might take me a bit) and thanks to my amazing friend Shell_Writes for (as always) doing the first completed read, and to my friend @myshoemysatan on tumblr for giving me that push when I got stuck.
> 
> (Y'know, I notice that I was always thank a ton of people, but that's because I actually take a village AND a batman to write these things lol)


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